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[OwlThatLikesAnts]

What nest are they in? Could I see a picture of the whole setup?

A 3d printed setup using a Pringles lid, they used to nest all over the place but then they decided the main area was the bottom chamber, the reason there is tooth picks is because I used to put honey on the toothpicks and they decided they will drag the whole thing into the nest and eat like mad. The substrate pile on the top chamber is the pupating area and the middle chamber is where they would occasionally place the pupa because it is dry.

 

The nest:

 

[OwlThatLikesAnts]

The colony is looking really good! Keep power feeding them and you will have a large colony in no time.

They eat literally everything that I put in the outworld so far, so that is not a problem. They are literally eating a 2 week old egg yolk chunk right now, before the egg yolk was just an appetizer now it is their main course.

 

(OH! And just as I am writing this a worker is sipping honey)

[OwlThatLikesAnts]

For those who are waiting for this journal to update after a month of waiting.

Look out for a three part update coming soon!

[OwlThatLikesAnts]

​BIG UPDATE!!! (PART 1)

 

A lot of stuff has been happening with my colonies involving nest upgrades and an addition of a new colony. I am going to go around my updating my journals on what has happened in the past month. Most of the stuff that happened was related to my Formica colony so I am going to update you guys on what happened to my colony before the nest upgrade.

 

​First weeks of April:

 

So the colony’s nest was getting pretty dirty and they have moved a lot of substrate that they made wet around using the water feeder causing stains on the nest walls. I also didn’t like the look of the bare 3D printed nest being completely filled with substrate. I also happened to bring this colony to school two times for testing my science fair project  related to what ants would eat when given a variety of foods to eat from. They behaved good, and by that I mean they did not eat their brood. After that, I decided that I would buy Por Amor Art formicariums. The ones I bought were (Wait a minute, that’s for part two of the update!) because the first one was the best looking (in my opinion ) and it had to be visible for people in visiting the oncoming science fair (somewhere in May). The second formicarium was for after the science fair (HINT: the ants can dig and make tunnels) the third nest was for other colonies. Just saying, at this time a lot of the pupa were staring to darken

 

​Mid April:

 

This is when I ordered from Por Amor Art and my really expensive order was confirmed (yes yes really expensive 100+ dollars    ). It’s also when a massive amount of pupa were starting to enclose. Half of the pile disappeared and there were pupa casings everywhere in the garage pile. A majority of the nest population was grey workers with soft exoskeletons. What was really surprising was that some of the new workers were already caring for brood while some others were just hanging out doing nothing, DO SOMETHING YOU LAZY ANTS… Anyway, since most of the pupa has enclosed, the queen ramped up her egg laying rate and that is when the power feeding was picked back up. The upside of having more workers was that food was processed faster.

 

That’s it for part one update, part two coming soon!

Edited by OwlThatLikesAnts, Yesterday, 1:37 PM.